Blowing into the wind
A repeat of last week's task on The Apprentice. Instead of washing clothes, the boys and girls were making and serving food. It's as if the programme-makers want to strip our jargon-vomiting, power-breakfasting suits down to the bare, Lord Of The Flies-style basics - sell wet fish, clean spunk-stained linen, make carbonara - before giving them anything more esoteric to do. Sir Alan sold us, and them, a major dummy by gathering the reduced 14 in the promising surrounds of Tate Modern (would they be required to create an installation for the Turbine Hall?), but this turned out to be a tenuous link from regeneration to selling food in two pubs ("The pub industry has been suffering, so they've gotta find ways of means of getting people in," muffed Sir Alan, whose pathological inability to use common phrases or idioms - "blowing into the wind"? - seems actually infectious). Renaissance got the Duke Of Hamilton in Hampstead, Alpha the King's Head in Islington (which is where I filmed my talking head footage for Heroes Unmasked, fact fans) - two groups of seven "global risk pricing strategy liaison managers" let loose in a kitchen? What could possibly go wrong? How about the boys deciding, with the usual high fives, to speak in fake Italian accents? (This idea came from Raef - otherwise virtually edited out of this week's show - a man who already speaks in a fake English accent.)Actually, they seemed to nix this insane and racist idea before opening time, and thank God, as our non-Alpha males had enough woes on their plate without offending the clientele with Mind Your Language accents. (Michael did sing a shaky but courageous a capella version of Amore, but this clip only made it onto the "extras" on the Apprentice website, which is always worth a look, by the way - and I speak as a purist who will not watch You're Fired on BBC2, ever, ever, as it lets light in on magic. There's a beautiful fixed shot of the front of the pub, with Michael desperately singing inside, and Lee McQueen wanders pointlessly outside, checks the blackboard and wanders back in. We must call him by his full name, by the way. He certainly does.) "A manager would tell the team to get out to the deli and bring back the ciabattas!" stressed Simon, who says "manager" but means "commanding officer". He was frustrated again this week, as he's a get-things-done kind of guy, led by a series of dither-and-get-fuck-all-done project managers: this week, the almost entirely useless Ian, whose asymmetric hairdo could not disguise his symmetric lack of project-managing acumen. How galling it must have been to have Sgt Major Simon on his back for the whole task, smacking that fist into his palm ("fact, fact, fact!") and asking the questions that nobody else was asking, such as, to Matt Lucas, "How many tomatoes do you need?" (Matt, "head chef" - or in plain English "chef" - didn't know how many tomatoes he needed, but then neither did he know what Italian food was, or what was in a carbona, or that you don't need to roast mushrooms in an oven before making them into a mushroom sauce. He stressed to Sir Alan come the inevitable reckoning that he'd eaten in Italian restaurants. Specifically ones where latte sprinkled with chocolate is called a dessert.) Again, in the unused footage on the website, we hear Simon using army terminology, describing his team's catering efferts as "a clusterfuck" and "everything's gone to ratshit" - he was clearly out in 'Nam too long.
More than any other episode I can think of, this one had a clear cut narrative, that built as elegantly as any drama: Ian's downfall; Matt Lucas's redemption; the schism between Sara and Claire; the conflict between Ian and Simon, which led to the showdown, and to Simon's redemption; the seeding of Ian's failure to even say the word "losers" at the beginning, thrown back in his face by Sir Alan at the climax when he became one. It was immaculate, if predictable. Selective editing means you can tell who's going to be in the boardroom by about 20 minutes in - it was never going to be Raef, or Michael, or Alex. It was never going to be any of the girls, who were predestined not to lose, but if it had been, it would have been project manager Sara, nemesis Claire and - welcome to the show! - Helene, a "global pricing leader" from Wakefield who, post-Shazia, is the second oldest Apprentice at 32 (Jenny the "bitch" is 36), but couldn't make a korma.
The "Bollywood" theme was as naff as you'd expect, with a couple of saris and a "Bollywood dancer" on a raised wooden platform about three inches off the ground who was a waiter from an Indian restaurant in Brick Lane, who put his all into jerking about and removing his shirt but was no Bollywood dancer. If an actual building could look embarrassed, the King's Head did. Good to see Jenny acting like a fool, clapping along and wondering where Bollywood was. All the action was in Hampstead, where the boys, who didn't know how to cook, also proved they didn't know how to cater, buying their supplies from that well-known cash-and-carry called Tesco and spending over 500 quid on jars of Dolmio and pizza bases (but not ciabattas or black bags). Matt forgot to add salt and pepper to the bolognese, which was sent back, as were the brilliantly disguised half-pizzas ("That's not a whole pizza," spotted one customer). And Lee McQueen was the first Apprentice to speak of himself in the third person (someone had to do it). They acted like a bunch of idiots, and yet, they made more money than the girls did with their "rubbish" curry. (Hey, at least Sara broke the stereotype of a British Indian who knows all about Indian cooking.) Unfortunately, having given most of their profit to Mr Tesco, while the girls had actually sold advance tickets for a fiver to people who then didn't actually turn up - the thought of which gave Sir Alan a little semi - the boys came back with less profit. It was so squarely Ian's fault, you had to admire the way he tried to deflect the blame onto Matt, the only other team-member with a job title ("head chef") for not doing someone else's job, pricing the food, and onto Simon, whose crime was to be negative. Sir Alan was never going to fire Simon, but attempted to fool us into thinking that he might by challenging him to prove he can do more than chop onions next week. Meanwhile, Ian the losing loser who losingly lost due to being a loser, was on his way back to Flitwick. Favourite TV show: Lost. Favourite song: Loser.
Highlight? Surely Matt Lucas arriving back at the house and delivering a victorious and gloriously white "Booyaka!", as opposed to the actual catchphrase, "Booyakasha!" (So he's Sasha Baron Cohen, not Matt Lucas? How confusing. He's a caution either way.)
Recaps: Week One, Week Two
posted by Andrew Collins @ 7:13 AM
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I hadn't seen any of this year's Apprentice until last night but you've hit the nail on the head with the Matt Lucas reference, and even more remarkable - he actually looks and sounds like a Kevin.
Booyaka is fine btw, I remember it from the days when Jungle swept across Slough.
"Michael did sing a shaky but courageous a capella version of Amore, but this clip only made it onto the "extras" on the Apprentice website, which is always worth a look, by the way - and I speak as a purist who will not watch You're Fired on BBC2, ever, ever, as it lets light in on magic"
You are missing out by not watching "You're Fired" -- firstly you do get to see extra clips including Michael singing; and secondly seeing Ian squirm with his (pub manager) father in the audience as he tried to defend himself.
I think Ian also missed a trick in not bringing Michael into the board room, as halfway through the general table talk with the boys about what went wrong Michael admitted that HE was the one responsible for LOWERING the prices as the boys' menu went to press.
Of course it was actually the amount spent on buying the stock in the first place that really did the damage, but Ian could have tried to shift blame on (a) Michael's dire singing putting customers off even coming into the venue; and (b) Michael admitting to tampering with the prices.
Ian the dipstick missed a trick employed to great effect last week by Jenny, when it suddenly dawned on Jenny whilst in the board room that she could shift blame onto Shazia for the labelling mix up.
The Dipstick (Ian) definitely deserved to be fire for that. His choice of who to bring into the boardroom was weak: (1) Kevin the chef who he obviously wanted to "dump" the blame on lock, stock and barrel; and (2) Simon, whose only fault was to actually point out with embarrassing clarity everything the boys' team were doing wrong!
Excellent episode!
Andrew, such a purist you're missing out on the fun straight after in You're Fired. Personally I don't think it destroys any of the 'magic' any more than the website. In fact it is fascinating because here is the loser out of the context of the show's editorial, left to justify their actions. Last week Shazia completely won over the audience and panel, who all thought she was stitched up. This week Ian tried to bluster and blag his way out, as he had done in the boardroom and was roundly booed and clearly not liked. I actually felt a twinge (just a twinge) of sympathy, fleetingly, for him, as his dad told him he'd let him down in public. With his dad adding to the humiliation, you couldn't help wondering if there was a whole history there of a critical, unsupporting dad, quite happy to humiliate son in public. Certainly his response of bluster and bravado and lies in the face of hostility hinted at a bloke who couldn't say 'loser' because he feared he was one, and had been told so already. OK, amateur psychology, and probably all rubbish, but that's what you get there. You're Fired is an essential adjunct to the show, and doesn't spoil it in any way, shape or form. You're missing out there.
What looked like it might be a "dull" epsiode, turned out to be one of the best so far. The clever editing made it clear from the start that this was the Ian vs Kevin/Matt Lucas show. From the moment Ian annointed Kevin/Matt as "Head Chef" and effectively shunted responsibility onto Kev/Matt, you knew we had an episode of Machiavellian proportions.
Best moments: Kevin trying to work out how many tomatoes were needed....on his fingers (10 tomatoes for 4 people, so 150 for 15...11....6...errr...4...); the "pep" talk given by Kev/Matt which was later denied by Ian in the boardroom; Simon referring to Siralan as plain old Alan and then nearly having a heart attack when he realised his mistake in offending his Commanding Officer (Siralan); The midget Bollywood dancer who appeared to be about 6 inches tall and was slightly taken aback when he found out he would be dancing to Indian music (not rap); Kev/Matt claiming that a coffee was a dessert and then talking about a "latte with chocolate on" (a cappucino to everyone else); trying to palm off half a pizza as being simply "segmented by the Head Chef"; etc etc etc
Brilliant telly, as was the additional Adrian Chiles show on BBC2 straight after - even Ian's Dad thought he was a loser. It was interesting that Ian came across as a pompous prat with no ability to laugh at himself. Not just down to clever editing then after all.
Yes it was a safe episode, but by far my favourite bit was when Matt Lucas explained to the assembled apprentici at the end that it was indeed he that had "put the final nail in Ian's grave"...
Surely that's up there with 'Blowing in the wind"!
StephenC
My favourite bit last night was when Simon called Siralan 'Alan' and then put his hand up to his mouth and apologised profusely, as if he was going to be taken outside and shot for this heinous act. The look on his face was priceless. How can a soldier be scared of Alan Sugar? I do think he's the only normal person on there though and he's my favourite to win.
I had to hide my eyes when Michael was explaining the chef's reasoning behind the 'segmenting' of the pizza. So cringey.
Zoe
'Favourite TV show: Lost. Favourite song: Loser.'
Kick a man when he's down!
Ouch!
I noticed we used the same pictures in our reviews - it's hard to find decent shots that don't give away the loser, I find.
Is it just me or is Michael Sophocles a greek George Costanza?
Excellent Slough/Jungle insight, Paul, although I doubt Matt Lucas was on that particular scene.
I'd completely missed the "nail in grave" quote, StephenC! Priceless, like fish.
I'm going to stand my ground on You're Fired, despite collective enthusiasm. I watched it once in the first series and hated two things about it that appear not to have changed:
1) It's filmed now, ie. months and months after the episode was shot. I truly think it's unfair to make the fired sales manager come back on the telly and explain themselves when they've presumably been back in their proper job since last summer. I think the cruelty of the show itself is part of the package - and carefully stage-managed - but to put even these idiots in front of a baying studio audience smacks of sadism. And what Ian's dad said sounds horrible. Let them slink off back to Flitwick, I say.
2) It's like a DVD making-of featurette. Unnecessary. The programme is so beautifully made and edited, I'm sated after watching it. I need no extras. I only watched the Michael-singing clip on the website by accident, which is why I mentioned it. I don't need deleted scenes - how can they improve the hour that's just gone?
I think we'll have some fun from Michael Costanza in the weeks to come. He has yet to come into his own in the editing suite.
I love Lindi and can't wait for her to get more of a starring role - she is so bonkers - but in a nice way.
It was her idea to have the hotline to the laundry and then last night she wanted the waitresses to ask diners their first names! Wtf?
Someone somewhere must have told her about 'added value' but not that people eating a meal or having their knickers washed don't give a shit!
Yes Simon is coming across as the most likeable, but he needs to step up and believe in himself - why did he say old Matt Dawes would be head chef? ...I would also like to see Lucinda's hat given the recognition it deserves. If she previously looked like an extra from Ashes to Ashes, this week was Monarch of the Glen.
I also love You're Fired but thought last night's was the worst so far, Ian was such a w*nker, he was even boring Adrian Chiles who had to resort to asking the panel: "So, is there anything else you would like to add?"
The thing I like about 'You're Fired' is that, mostly, there isn't a 'baying' studio audience (obviously there will be when JennyTheBitch gets there, but she deserves it) and the Idiots are given the chance to reveal themselves as almost human and nearly likeable. Last night was an exception - Ian didn't take the opportunity to laugh at himself, give a disarming shrug and make us all thaw towards him... and that bit with his dad was really unpleasant.
At least his mum still loves him.
Ah, but Beth, I don't want them to be human and likeable! I've just watched them in the equivalent of an hour-long drama and that's how I want them to stay: in character, as it were. Does that make sense?
"The pub industry has been suffering, so they've gotta find ways of means of getting people in"
the pub industry is like any industry. Managed pub/restaurants make what little money there is these days, due to breweries' decision to keep hiking up pricing, this is more telling in the more traditional pubs. I knew two landlords of a local Bankss pub that were paying £400 rent a month to serve to largely a 'senior' clientele - lager, bitter, mild most prominent drinks sold. As they were doing well, the brewery decided to hike the rent up to £800, and introduce special offers on cider. How is that going to help them. They came out because weren't getting the support from their BMW SUV driving Area Manager. Meanwhile, Bankss themselves have sold a lot of pubs off as land to be developed into property, save for the listed buildings they can't. It's the personal touch of a pub that seems to be dying out, as pubs realise they make most of their money on food and according to a mate (ex-chef of M&B pub) they get their food from suppliers of a few days old stock.
Anyone turning a profit in the pub game soon gets their margins increased by the brewery, when they should be supported to increase the revenue of the things that work well.
machine levine
"It's filmed now, ie. months and months after the episode was shot. I truly think it's unfair to make the fired sales manager come back on the telly and explain themselves when they've presumably been back in their proper job since last summer."
I actually think it works well that "You're Fired" is filmed several months later, as it gives the evictee a nice cooling off period. With some of them (angry ones who think they were wrongly ejected) this is sometimes useful if the added distance of a few months helps give them a bit of insight, a less impassioned view of themselves.
I can understand that some of them might think "sod it, I'm now doing something else, getting on with my life, do I really want to rake over all that again?" .... but it gives them the opportunity to get back on TV (including post "You'Re Fired" morning TV breakfast and radio interviews sometimes) .... and with the BEST evictees, they have usually managed to become dispassionate about the whole thing, and often have a sense of humour about it.
(Obviously not with the completely humourless Ian from last night!)
I actually thought last night's episode, in terms of editing anyway, was a bit weak. I know they have to chop hours and hours of footage down to around 45 mins (if you exclude the board room bits) but there seemed to be huge chunks of the story missing. Particularly on the girls team.
Imagine if the girls had discussed using fake accents for their Bollywood theme? I doubt even the suggestion would have made the edit. Just shows what a pillock Raef is.
Simon is definitely a firm favourite to make the final 3 or 4. I don't buy this 'he's good worker but can he be a good manager' nonsense. It's being set up like that but look at the way he took the piss out of Raef the week before. There's more to this bloke than meets the eye. At least I hope so, there's already enough stereotypes in the show.
Strangely enough I thought that Adrian Chiles was bored with Ian as well - he seemed to run out of questions very quickly after it became clear Ian wasn't going to play ball and laugh at himself. The incident with his Dad was painful - "Do you think you're son has let you down?" - "Yes, he has." Ian's face literally dropped and he mumbled "Cheers Dad" before staring at the table in front of him for what seemed like an eternity but was in actual fact only a few seconds. Clearly there is history between the two, a fact compounded by Ian shouting "She's the best Mum in the world" for no reason at all, when his mother is asked her opinions of him using hair straighteners (she seemed fairly quiet about the whole affair though).
The biggest laugh came when the real kitchen hand in the boys pub was asked if he thought Kev/Matt could make a carbonara. His response was "He couldn't even make a latte".
Television gold.
I just found Simon very funny this week (I'll add that I'm not laughing at him, er only at things that he does that are relatively charming, like the hand over mouth moment Zoe mentioned, and his look back at a departing Ian which was like something off Acorn Antiques). Both he and Ian seemed aware of the camera in a way that suggested a level of 'normality' (as did his description of Ian as David Brent on the website video)... which might be a problem... if he wasn't so funny to watch.
Lee McQueen seems to have a short fuse and was perhaps taking a risk shouting at Kevin 'My name is Lucas', in a kitchen. Lucas's speech was truly horrible.
You're Fired - or You've Been Framed as it should've been called last week - can be very entertaining but can also be quite strained, with guests struggling to look interested. Your point does make sense Andrew (you'll be glad to know) but sometimes it looks like they're acting being nice.
No-one's mentioned the best bit! When Ian was on the phone to whoever was in charge of getting a quote from the printer (I don't know all their names yet, sorry), there was a priceless (no pun intended) exchange:
"Ian, I've managed to get the price down. Instead of £2 a menu, they'll do them for £1 a menu"
"So, do you reckon that's a goer then?"
"I'd say so, I've just managed to get 100% knocked off the price!"
Errr, no you haven't. That would imply they menus were being done for free. Factor in Dafydd The Only Gay in the Village's inability to work out how many tomatoes make 15 bowls of soup ("4 portions need 10 tomatoes, so 15 portions need... 150 tomatoes?") and it seems they can't even perform the most basic mental arithmetic!
(Apologies, I'm a maths student)
It makes perfect sense Andrew!
I'm probably going to sound as though I'm contradicting myself, but it disappoints me when some of the really bonkers ones seem OK when they sit down next to Adrian Chiles...erm, that's not what I meant, but I'm not going to re-type it...as I want them to be like they were 'on the telly' in 'real life' and yet, at the same time it's a relief when they aren't - otherwise I'd be worrying about how on earth they would cope with the world. (Not the nasty ones, obviously, just the hopelessly deluded).
(That probably doesn't make sense does it?)
You're Fired is a bit too low-rent to accompany a show with such pretensions to glamour and gloss. Everything Andrew has said about it is right, as is everything everyone else has. It can be interesting but I do feel a bit dirty watching it. (And no, I don't mean that Adrian Chiles gets my sap rising.) Last night's was shit.
I can't believe Sir Alan didn't make more (or anything) of the fact that they bought all their supplies at a supermarket. To his credit, at least Simon seemed to have some vague sense that there should be some kind of benefit available somewhere for buying in bulk.
Am I missing something, by the way? Who buys a £5 ticket for a pub theme night merely on the promise of getting their £5 back on the price of the meal? Are we absolutely certain that these people didn't think they were buying raffle tickets? For charity?
Also by the way, is there some kind of quota for blue-eyed contestants that they've realised they haven't been meeting in the previous series?
Don't these people ever use their phones properly? The boys all seem to think that they're Capt Kirk. And lessons in how not to record your Voice Mail message.
I too enjoy You're Fired. Yes, it is a bit like a DVD extra, but one of the better ones.
When Jennythebitch is finally fired, they'll have to do her show behind bullet proof glass.
Incidentally, I have never met a Jenny I liked. Surely that's just coincidence. They can't all be evil, can they?
"How do you spell 'accent'?"
If only I thought Lee had said that to defuse the situation developing in front of him, rather than actually not knowing how to spell the word. Fair play to him for asking, I suppose. Better that than pretending you can do something better than you actually can.
Oh.
Hang on. That's the premise of the show, isn't it?
Simon is definitely not going to win. He seems like a nice, capable chap, and less prone to bullshit than most of them, but Sugar clearly already has him nailed as an NCO and not the commanding officer he's looking for. He may last another couple of weeks, but no more than that.
And why was the project manager more accountable this week than the project manager of the shambles last week? Because Jenny makes better tv than Shazia and because Ian was picked to manage this task, rather than volunteering, perhaps being set up to fail?
It's brilliant tv though. These monkeys amuse me endlessly.
ST
(I enjoy "You've Been Fired Too". Chiles is always engaging, and it is good to see the candidate in a different context. I absolutely agree that Ian did himself no favours and looked a complete, humourless prat. Which, of course, he is)
I also liked it when Lee told Matt Lucas not to shout at him in the kitchen and Matt Lucas mumbled "But that's what chefs do". Bless him, he just wanted to play at being Gordon Ramsay for the day.
Zoe
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